Month: October 2016

Don’t let the materialistic assumptions of the modern world infect your thinking and how you live your day to day life. Don’t become cynical or complacent about this important aspect of the Unseen.
The blessings that Allah bestows on humanity are real and have tangible impact. And yes, sometimes that impact is not explainable in terms of the materialistic parameters of thought many of us have consigned ourselves to.

Don’t just acknowledge baraka in a theoretical sense. KNOW it and see the world around you in light of it.

As a Muslim, baraka needs to be a part of how you see the world. That will furnish you with spiritual benefits because you will be seeking that baraka and you will gain greater consciousness of your Lord. Your iman will also experience periodic boosts as you start to recognize the place of baraka (or the lack thereof) in your life. You will notice that remembering Allah (dhikr) and good deeds bring you baraka and the opposite take it away. This will immensely improve your state of mind and heart.

This is because you will see and experience the connections between the world and the will and power of Allah. These are some of the many ayat all around us.
سَنُرِيهِمْ آيَاتِنَا فِي الْآفَاقِ وَفِي أَنفُسِهِمْ حَتَّىٰ يَتَبَيَّنَ لَهُمْ أَنَّهُ الْحَقُّ ۗ أَوَلَمْ يَكْفِ بِرَبِّكَ أَنَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ شَهِيدٌ
“We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. But is it not sufficient concerning your Lord that He is, over all things, a Witness?”
There will also be material benefits in terms of your wealth, time, efficacy, efficiency, etc. Things will start “working out,” so to speak.

You will also benefit intellectually because you will gain more of an understanding of how the world really works. Again, instead of theoretical knowledge, you will have experiential knowledge because you will have experienced these things and seen them for yourself.

So seek baraka in all the many things that Allah and His Messenger ﷺ have specifically delineated. Make it a part of your daily life and make it the lens by which you understand your life. And may Allah bless us all.
Daniel Haqiqatjou

Don’t let anyone see you, except that you are happy. Let them always see your smile and if things get difficult, the Quran is your Paradise. If loneliness starts to hurt, send your supplications through the heavens. When people ask how you are, praise Allah and smile.
When you see an ant on the sidewalk, avoid stepping on it, seeking therein the Face of Allah; for perhaps He will have mercy on you as you had mercy on it. Remember that the ant glorifies Allah, so don’t cut of it’s glorifying by killing it.
When you pass by a bird drinking from a pond, don’t go so near so as to scare it, and seek therein the Face of Allah; perhaps He will spare you being terrified on the Day when the hearts will reach the throats.
When a cat gets in your way on the road, avoid running it over, and seek therein the Face of Allah; perhaps Allah will save you from an evil end.
When you are tempted to throw away left over food, let your intention be that some creatures (animals) will eat it (and place it somewhere they can get to it), seeking therein the Face of Allah; perhaps Allah will send you provisions through means you never imagined.
Remember, do good no matter how insignificant it may seem to you, for you never know which good deed will be the reason for you entering Paradise.
If you wish to share this, do so with a good intention, for perhaps Allah will relieve a distress of yours from the distresses of this world and the Hereafter.
copied # (Zakia Usmani).

A very important point
Shaikh Ibn al-`Uthaymeen رحمه الله said:❝Some of the foolish, ignorant people, lacking intelligence, scare their small innocent children and frighten them by saying: so-and-so will come (and take you), or so-and-so will (do such-and-such to you). So the child gets scared and this fear and anxiety remains in his heart, and this becomes permanent in his heart so that he is constantly in anxiety, fear and distress.
Sometimes it is the father who scares his son and sometimes it is the mother who scares her son and daughter.
But the most foolish ones are those who tell us that the when a child does something wrong (then as punishment) he should be locked inside his room, alone. And even when he shouts and screams they do not feel sorry for him nor do they open the door.
And this is one of the means by which a Jinn overpowers (and possesses) the child. This was conveyed by one of the Jinns who had possessed a child and said that he entered in him when his father had locked him inside the room, and he began to shout and scream, and that’s when he possessed him.
*So we should be alert and take precautions from the things which can become a means for the Jinn to overpower us.❞

Praise be to Allah
Some scholars say that it is permissible to use the masbahah (prayer beads), but they say that it is preferable to do tasbeeh (count praises) on one’s fingers; others say that it is bid’ah (reprehensible innovation).
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said in al-Fatawa (22/187): “Some of them might show off by putting their prayer-mats over their shoulders and carrying their masbahahs in their hands, making them symbols of religion and prayer. It is known from the mutawatir reports (reports in such large numbers that they couldn’t be forged) that neither the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) nor his Companions used these as symbols. They used to recite tasbeeh and count on their fingers, as the hadeeth says: “Count on your fingers, for they will be asked, and will be made to speak.” Some of them may count their tasbeeh with pebbles or date stones. Some people say that doing tasbeeh with the masbahah is makrooh (disliked), and some allow it, but no one says that tasbeeh with the masbahah is better than tasbeeh with the fingers.” Then he (may Allah have mercy on him) goes on to discuss the issue of showing off with the masbahah, saying that it is showing off with regard to something that is not prescribed by Islam, which is worse than showing off with regard to something that is prescribed.
Al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn Salih al-‘Uthaymeen (al-Liqa al-Maftooh, 3/30) was asked whether using the masbahah for tasbeeh is bid’ah, and his reply was: “It is better not to do tasbeeh with the masbahah, but it is not bid’ah, because there is a basis for it, which is the fact that some of the Sahabah (Companions) did tasbeeh with pebbles. But the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) taught us that tasbeeh with the fingers is better, as he said, ‘Count with the fingertips, for they will be made to speak.’ Doing tasbeeh with the masbahah is not haram (impermissible) or bid’ah, but it is better not to do it, because the one who does tasbeeh with the masbahah has shunned something better. Using the masbahah may also be contaminated with some element of showing off, because we see some people carrying masbahahs that contain a thousand beads, as if they are telling people, ‘Look at me, I do a thousand tasbeehs!’ Secondly, those who use the masbahah for tasbeeh are usually absent-minded and not focused, so you see them doing tasbeeh with the beads, but their gaze is wandering all over the place, which indicates that they are not really concentrating. It is better to do tasbeeh with one’s fingers, preferably using the right hand rather than the left, because the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to count his tasbeeh on his right hand. If a person counts his tasbeeh using both hands, there is nothing wrong with that, but it is better to use the right hand only.”
Al-Shaykh Muhammad Nasir al-Deen al-Albani said in Al-Silsilat al-Da’eefah (1/110), where he quotes the (weak) hadeeth “What a good reminder is the subhah [masbahah],”
“In my view, the meaning of this hadeeth is invalid for a number of reasons:
Firstly, the subhah [masbahah] is bid’ah and was not known at the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). It happened after that, so how could he (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) have encouraged his Sahabah to do something that was unknown to them? The evidence for what I have said is the report narrated by Ibn Waddah in Al-Bid’ wa’l-Nahy ‘anha from al-Salt ibn Bahram, who said: ‘Ibn Mas’ood passed by a woman who had a [masbahah] with which she was making tasbeeh, and he broke it and threw it aside, then he passed by a man who was making tasbeeh with pebbles, and he kicked him then said, “You think you are better than the Sahabah, but you are following unjustified bid’ah! You think you have more knowledge than the Companions of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)!”’ Its isnad (chain of transmission) is saheeh (authentic) to al-Salt, who is one of the trustworthy (thiqah) followers of the Tabi’een (Successors).
Secondly, it goes against the guidance of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). ‘Abd-Allah ibn ‘Amr (may Allah be pleased with him) said, ‘I saw the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) counting the tasbeeh on his right hand.’”
He also said (1/117): “If there is only one bad thing about the masbahah, which is that it takes the place of the Sunnah of counting on the fingers, even though all are agreed that counting on the fingers is preferable, then that is bad enough. How rarely I see people counting their tasbeeh on their fingers!
Moreover, people have invented so many sophisticated ways of following this bid’ah, so you see the followers of one of the [Sufi] tareeqahs (orders) wearing the masbahah around their necks! Or some of them counting with the beads whilst talking or listening to you! Or another one – the like of whom I have not seen for some time – riding his bicycle through a street crowded with people, with the masbahah in one of his hands! They are showing the people that they are not distracted from the remembrance of Allah for even an instant, but in many cases this bid’ah is a cause of their neglecting what is obligatory (wajib). It has happened many times – to others as well as myself – that when I greet one of these people with salam, they answer only by waving and not by saying the words of the greeting. The bad results of this bid’ah are innumerable, and no one can say it better than the poet:
‘All goodness is in following that which went before (the salaf)
All badness is in the innovations of those who came later.’”
And Allah knows best.
Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid

​Shaykh Saalih al-Fawzaan said:
The things in which the kuffaar are imitated include acts of worship, such as imitating them in matters of shirk, such as building (structures) over graves, building shrines and exaggerating about them. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “May the curse of Allaah be upon the Jews and the Christians, for they took the graves of their Prophets as places of worship.” Al-Bukhaari, 425; Muslim, 531. And he told us that when a righteous man among them died, they would build a place of worship over his grave, and install images therein, and that they were the most evil of mankind. Al-Bukhaari, 417; Muslim, 528. Nowadays there are instances of major shirk because of exaggeration concerning graves, as is well known to scholars and ordinary folk alike. The cause of that is imitation of the Jews and Christians.
Another example is their imitation of the festivals of shirk and bid’ah, such as birthday celebrations, whether it is the birthday of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) or the birthdays of presidents and kings. Or these festivals of bid’ah and shirk may be named after days or weeks, such as a country’s national day or independence day, or Mother’s Day, or hygiene week, and other days or weeks that are celebrated. All of these have come to the Muslims from the kuffaar, for Islam has only two festivals: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Anything else is bid’ah and an imitation of the kuffaar.
From a khutbah entitled al-Hathth ‘ala Mukhaalafat al-Kuffaar (Exhortation to be distinct from the kuffaar)
Ref: https://islamqa.info/en/45200